this morning, my question. if republicans can't win the vote, will they rig the vote? plus, my interview with former gop star, head boilermaker, mitch daniels. and which schools are we closing and why? first, can president obama save the planet? good morning.

i'm melissa harris perry. the maldives. just saying the name brings a smile to my face and a feeling of relaxation located in the indian ocean, it's comprised of 1200 islands with clear blue seas and white sands. i can't wait to visit this beautiful island nation. i hope by the time i visit it, it's not under water. it's the lowest lying country on earth with 80% of the islands 3.5 feet above sea levels. with sea levels having risen, that means the nation could be uninhabitable in 2100. in 2009, then the president and 13 cabinet members held an underwater cabinet meeting. they signed documents calling on all countries to reduce their

carbon dioxide emissions ahead of a climate change conference at the u.n. while it seems like a country far away, it's indicative of the real effects of climate change and the effects they have on us. those suffering from hurricane sandy might disagree. as a country, where does that leave us when it comes to addressing and committing to comprehensive environmental policy? we are the same country that signed the protocol to reduce greenhouse emissions but never rad fied it. there aren't enough recycling bins, bottles and bags to reverse the damage we have done. we need bigger policy. policy that shifts us in another direction that has us investing

in a greener future for the environment and the economy. president obama may have shown signs he is ready to do that in the second inaugural address. >> we will respond to the threat of climate change knowing that the failure to do so would betray our children and future generations. the path toward sustainable energy sources will be long and sometimes difficult. america cannot resist this transition. we must lead it. we cannot cede to other nations the power of jobs and technologies. we must claim its promise. >> strong, clear words from a president considered not green enough by environment lists in his first term. it's true, the president has a lot of work to do but instead of chastising him, maybe it's time for the green movement itself to reimagine what it ought to look like. the modern green movement must

be an inclusive one and close the green gab that exists between national and environmental organizations and justice organizations. the environmental problems in inner cities and rural areas ok pied by low income communities of color deserve as much attention as the fracking. at the end of the day, the environmental problem that is happen over there, whether in the mall deese or usa, it will affect us. joining us, the nation magazine. victoria an nbc latino con tr contribut contributor. mike, the executive director of the schoolkill center and peggy executive director of west harlem environmental education. so nice to have all of you at the table. folks who follow the story know the second part of the story is that the president is deposed by

a military coup last year in 2012. the thing i love and hate about that story is yep, that's exactly the problem. we can't make big, sustainable international green policy because we are fighting, literally fighting over islands sinking into the ocean. here, too, we are continuing to fight over all these policy questions and politics questions and missing the big story, the big story that is affecting all of us. is there any way to get us refocused on international inner generational, sustainable and international? >> climate change. we all have skin and neck in it. polls show 49% of americans believe that climate change is occurring and that people have caused it. 24% say it's climate change, but not from people.

i'm not sure what science people are waiting for at this point. there's so much more science in and more coming in all the time. none theless, it was great to hear obama. no one has said the word climate change in a presidential debate. the more he talks about it, it could be a game changer. what he does is fine. just talking about it is going to bring it into the forefront. >> if talking about it and making it a game changer means that with lisa jackson out as head of the e.p.a., all he's done, on one hand we love it. we want to hear him say climate change and science deniers, it sets up a huge political battle over the head of the e.p.a. >> it's not just obama. the failure of cap and trade was through the congress, not just republicans but democrats in congress. they had ties to coal, nuclear

et cetera. i feel like the debate is moving, but it's like the gun control debate, but further behind. we have horrible shootings, we say we have to do something after gabby giffords then aurora. then after sandy hook, it got put on the agenda. climate change is moving that way, too. we keep saying after the explosions in louisiana we have to do something. we have to do something then, you know, hurricane sandy happens and it looks like finally we have reached that moment where we are going to do something. i don't know. i think it might take one more horrible environmental tragedy for it to get put on the agenda. >> we have done -- the fact the e.p.a. exists and it was created under richard nixon. as i was reading about it thinking about today, when he established the e.p.a., nixon said he wanted the 1970s to be a historic period when by conscious choice we transform

our land into what we want it to become. he was thinking conservationists we have transformed the land, but not into what we want it to become. >> it's a shame it's such a politically divisive issue. the grandfather was roosevelt, then nixon. getting back to your diversity in terms of coalitions for moving forward with environmental change, i think we need to think about diversity and techniques. we know we are stalemated in the congress. we know that for every issue. i think we are going to need to have a bunch of approaches to attack this problem. the president making use of his executive orders. putting pressure on our state governments because there are areas, for example, fracking that are unregulated. deforestation. i think when we concentrate on just the congress national level we get frustrated and we get to

the point where we say nothing is going to be done. if we look at cobbling together the different approaches, i think we can move forward. >> this idea that was brought up about the tragedies that lead us to say we must do something then the idea of using executive orders and cobbling things together. i wonder, part of what gave me a gut reaction to the oh now that hurricane sandy happened is whoa, these injustices have been so real for communities without resources, without power and often communities of color for so long. it feels a little bit like these lives and bodies matter and these other ones don't. >> exactly. what we see is that we see the climate impacts right now. we know that in alaska native americans are being relocated away from receding shorelines. we have seen what's happened in terms of civil disruption in new

orleans. now we have sandy. we have droughts. we have wildfires. the impacts are here and we have to react now. we understand unless grass roots are engaged, unless the voices are heard and organized and the capacity is there to build that kind of support and environmental literacy that depending on the congress is not going to happen. >> we'll talk about that issue of these local organizations and environmental literacy when we come back. i want to talk a tiny bit less about the planet and more about the people when we come back. for over 60,000 california foster children,

nights can feel long and lonely. i miss my sister. i miss my old school. i miss my room. i don't want special treatment. i just wanna feel normal. to help, sleep train is collecting pajamas for foster children, big and small. bring your gift to any sleep train, and help make a foster child's night a little cozier. not everyone can be a foster parent, but anyone can help a foster child. let me take you to warren county, north carolina in 1982.

this is the birthplace of the modern day environmental justice movement. residents of the predominantly black county were incensed to make their county home to a landfill where 6,000 landfills of pcb laiden soil would be dumped. the naacp got involved and there were weeks of non-vow lent protests and people laying in the streets to stop the trucks. in the end, they managed to stop the trucks. they didn't stop the state from filling the landfill. their success was -- they took action and brought attention to an environmental injustice going on. it showed the ugly link between environmental justice. these movements are decentralized, it's time the green movement, more nationally

realized the ej movements and getting policy passed to benefit all communities. i wanted to come to you an all this. this is where the rubber literally meets the road, right, or meets the landfill for so many communities. this idea that what we dump we often don't dump in our backyard, it's somebody else's backyard. what we emit, we emit in someone else's yard. they are disempowered communities. >> since 1991, hundreds of grass roots groups came together to develop principles of injustice, how to go back to communities and build a strong grass roots space. we have been in a grass roots struggle to disman tall environmental racism. it is people of color, indig nous people.

often, we are intentionally targeted for pollution because our communities don't have the same environmental level of literacy or political clout. often our land is cheaper. we have born this burden. it's led to increasing health disparities. >> these locally undesirable land uses where you have a belching factory on your fence line and then we see lead poisoning and all these things that impact kids. how do we take this sort of, you know, ordinary people trying to figure out how to keep themselves healthy in the short term and connect it with the 1970s version of conservation and the 21st century version of dealing with climate change. how does it all come together? >> it's a big question.

>> and you have one minute. >> pieces of it are, we don't have a consistent way of doing environmental education. what is a kid supposed to know to be an environment ally addition. a couple field trips to a nature center, is that enough? no. that's one piece of it. another piece is a lot of environmental groups realize we need to reach out to a broad spectrum of people and come from the top down or the bottom up. it's been happening, but too slowly. the groups like sierra club know they need to reach out to people in center cities like philadelphia. they have been trying but it's disjointed and disconnected. you have a couple thing that is need to happen. >> part of it, we started to define how to be a good environment list by individual

consumer actions. we are looking at the things we throw away. about 55% of what we throw away ends up in landfills. a third of it gets recycled. 12% of it goes to being combu combusted for energy. green tote bags and not plastic water bottles. have we thought enough about transportation and sustainable land uses? when we think about environmentalis environmentalists, how do we make that move? >> the irony here is because of the socioeconomic status of our communities of color, they are a lot greener when it comes to using public transportation. but, i think that when it comes to how do we push that envelope in terms of community of color, coming to an awareness is making

it an individual level decision. it does affect you and highlighting the fact that you are also in communities where your health care is at risk. so, again, living in texas, we know that medicaid funding is in peril. the health provision is in peril. then you have the community risks and it's a dangerous combination. education is absolutely the key here. >> the other piece of this, let's take keystone. on the level of keystone you have the problem of labor over and against the environmental movement. you have folks saying hey, i hear you on the earth situation but i need a job. the most valuable thing to my household is having the money that i need in order to buy the food that is at my grocery store. it's environmentalism for me. you end up with a feeling. keystone represents it. it's not just ideology.

it's on the ground and folks saying i need jobs and your green movement is keeping me from it. >> that's how obama is going to do it. this is how we are going to create the jobs of the future, through investments in green technology. it's been a missing piece of talking about the environment. the importance of bringing new people in the process is crucial. there's an interesting paper looking at the failure of cap and trade in congress. her conclusion is that there is a very good inside strategy for passing cap and trade, but no outside strategy to bring people in to pressure congress. that's going to be crucial if anything is going to move in a second term of an obama administration. >> we are going to stay on the question of earth and go to science class next. i promise, we are going to make it interesting. how did i know? well, i didn't really. see, i figured low testosterone would decrease my sex drive...

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earth. no, no, no. not really. i don't hate the earth. i can remember being a student thinking there was nothing compelling about the earth science courses i was required to take. check out this video from the environmental protection agency called a student's guide to global climate change. >> if the planet keeps getting warmer, we can expect more powerful storms and more flooding, droughts and heat waves. these changes could cause additional problems like the spread of certain diseases, more wildfires and food and water shortages. climate change could put entire ecosystems like coral reefs in danger and many plants and animals could become extinct. >> everything in that video is accurate, but -- i mean it's said in this voice, here are these horrible things happening and it's presented like when you are on the airplane and they are

telling you all the horrible things if the plane goes down in a soothing voice. if we are going to get kids riled up about the earth and riled up about science, we are going to have to become more compelling in some way. how do we become more compelling in earth science. >> footage of the polar bear trying to get on an ice floe doesn't do it for you? >> don't get me wrong. my staff and i kind of joke about this because i will say i hate the earth because i feel like sometimes i am meant to care more about the polar bear than about the little kid. obviously, they are connected. that's what i'm trying to figure out. make me care about the polar bear as much as i care about the kid in harlem with asthma. >> you have multiple things a kid should be literal on, for example when the trash truck picks up the trash from my house, where does it go? turn on the tap and where does

the water come from? most kids cannot tell you. every kid should graduate knowing that. then you have science based issues like global warming. that read like a commercial as opposed to questions kids can research and answer. that's how you teach climate change. you have to ask questions and let them to the exploration to find answers, not give them a lecture on it. we don't touch climate change in schools for a couple reasons. we chain them to desks to give them tests and the second, it's controversial. >> why is it controversial? >> because the public doesn't agree it's happening. by high school, imagine a high school environmental science class where people on both sides of the equation come in and talk to the kids and the kids ask questions of them. they get to have a debate and make up their own mind what they think. we don't do that. >> part of what you described as you asked when the garbage truck

picks up the trash, where does it go, that requires a fundmental thing like i feel we have been killing in schools, that is curiosity. it's not what do i need to know for the test tomorrow because it's high stakes test and will keep my teacher having a job or not, but curiosity of the natural world happens when we are allowed to spend time in the natural world and develop questions about it. >> i asked kids what is the number one bird you can name by song? first answer, none. kids can't name a bird by song, number two is crow. they can get that. we had this incredible miss understanding of the animals around us. we don't know who our neighbors are that share the planet with us. they are disappearing, too. we don't know who they are. it's a big story we are missing. >> getting back to what you said, melissa, the first thing that pops into my mind is the

polar bear. it's not necessarily the child or the elderly person affected by the blackouts who will suffer health consequences from the environment. i think it's in terms of bigger, public opinion, putting a different face on it. not showing fields and animals, that's part of it, but the person in the store or the person across the tracks from you. >> if the answer to where the trash goes is into my grandma's landfill in her backyard, that helps to make these things tangible. i want to be clear, it's not that i don't care about polar bears, but it feels easy to put that thing off because we are dealing with real human crises nearby. >> we need new leadership. we have to bring up our young people but we also have to educate the adults. we have to do the trainings, we

have to engage them in e.p.a. rule making. it may be e.p.a. rule making that begins to really put a focus on carbon and really begin to regulate it. how are elected officials going to take the leadership that is necessary to do that? they have to hear from their constituents. we have to do the training of adults. we have to mobilize them. we have to engage them. we need them to share their experiences with the elected officials and congretional folks. without that engagement, that mobilization, we see so many pieces of legislation dying. >> i wonder, as much as we have to mobilize here, i want to focus on the fact this is an international problem. if you are spewing carbons in new jersey, they cross the border into canada. how do we begin to think of an international focus here? >> it's been a problem for a long time. the u.s. is consuming more than

our population. it's affected the rest of the world. now we have problems like india and china are consuming based on an american model. they want what we want and they want to do it the way we did it. that means that you can't have any sort of climate agreement without everyone coming to the table. republicans used that as an excuse to do nothing. china is doing nothing -- no, it doesn't work that way. we have the number one country and we have to take the initiative. if we take the initiative, other countries will follow. if we don't, it's hard to do anything. >> this is a place where being a global superpower -- >> let's use our american exceptionalism. >> thank you to mike and peggy. up next, i can't believe i'm about to say this. this week in voter suppression is back. they couldn't win the game, so now they are trying to change the rules. [ male announcer ] when you wear dentures you may not know

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this past monday, martin luther king day doubled as inauguration day. reportedly 1 million people formed a national crowd on the national mall. 55% of the crowd from 2009. still, the largest crowd ever for a second inaugural. at least one of the attendees was henry march. maybe there were others on hand, but this is a story about one henry marsh, a virginia state senator. one of 20 democrats in the virginia assembly. like wise, 20 republicans in the same body so, an even split until state senator marsh was absent on monday, attending the inauguration. thus, by a 20 to 19 vote,

republicans passed a revised gerrymandered district map to go into effect on 2015, the year of the next state senate's election. they claim the map would create a majority black district. the 25th district, a democratic stronghold that includes my old backyard of charlottesville, virginia is one seat this plan could eliminate. given the republicans adjourned that session at 4:10 p.m. in memory of general stonewall jackson, i'm sure racial sensitivity wasn't high on the agenda. 3/5 of a person is of course how enslaved people were counted under u.s. law from the late 18th century until slavery was abolished. 51% is what president obama won of virginia's popular vote last

november, which earned him 100% of the state's electoral vote. 30% is all he would have taken under a new plan by republicans in virginia who want to allocate them based on congressional districts. had the plan been in effect in 2012, the president would have won just four of the state's 13 electoral votes, even after winning most of the state's actual votes, meaning he would have taken just, you got it, 3/5 of virginia's electoral votes compared to the popular vote he won. the target for all of this electoral college manipulation in virginia and the other republican controlled states considering similar measures, you guessed it, 2016. we are going to have a bit more on that coming up with the very man the virginia republicans couldn't wait to see leave town. ford c-max hybrid. when you're carrying a lot of weight,

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in response to 1954s brown versus board of education, some states did not implement racial fairness. they embarked on a strategy of resis tense to segregate and disenfranchise. my next guest, henry marsh at the forefront of the civil rights battle. he handled more than 50 school desegregation cases and innovated strategies to battle employment discrimination, which is what makes the action of his conservative colleagues in the general assembly worthy of condemnation. when mr. marsh went to washington, d.c. last week on martin luther king day to witness president obama's second inauguration, republicans in the state senate used his absence to gerrymander the commonwealth map. joining me from richmond is virginia state senator, henry marsh. nice to have you mr. marsh.

>> good morning. >> first i want to say thank you for joining us. i understand how had to go to the early services at church this morning to make time to be here. i greatly appreciate that. >> i didn't want to miss church. the lord made all this happen. >> in fact, let me ask you in part about how angry you are about how your absence has made possible this new map. >> actually, i'm ashamed and embarrassed for my state. somebody's absent almost two or three days a week. never was there an attempt to sneak anything through. they had this ready for some time and they were waiting for this date. the preceding week one of my colleagues had been absent twice and nothing was done. this was a deliberate plan. i'm not surprised it was done

sneaky. unfortunate for us, it violates the constitution because the redistricting can happen in the year for a constitution. it's done in violation of the voting rights act. it's a change in procedure which has not been precleared by the justice department. there's a diluted affect on the african-american vote. normally a bill comes to the house, it has to be jermaine to the one they put to the senate. this was not jermaine. >> explain what it is that the map does. how does it redraw the districts in a way and whom does it hurt and whom does it benefit? >> it hurts the people of virginia. instead of 26 on this map, we would have 13 at a maximum. they have reduced the total to 13 by putting people, two people in the same district by packing,

that's the procedure that has been condemned by the justice department. packing more blacks into a district and taking away from democratic colleagues. that's been condemned. every decision by the justice department. fortunately, virginia -- yeah -- virginia is in this situation because of the voting rights act. >> that's what i was going to ask you about. this is likely to be turned back under section 5 because the commonwealth of virginia is covered under section 5 preclearance of the voting act. we also know that is up for debate in front of the supreme court right now. we are looking at the possibility of that part of the voting rights act to go away. did virginia just make the best possible case of why we need it? >> they make that case a lot of ways.

there are a lot of other vote that is are taken. for example, they want to go back to photo id which we fought last session. they are bringing it back. unless you have a photo, you can't vote. they are trying to change the procedure for counting the votes. instead of counting popular vote, they are going to count by electoral. they are reacting to president obama's victory. they were so disappointed and surprised by his victory, they are striking out, striking back. you can see through that. the part i'm concerned about is that it's not just african-americans who are affected. we went through a tough election a year or two ago. the people got the person they elected overwhelmingly. now, this plan, they have to go back and have another election again. under this plan, they could do it again and again and again. the constitution says you can't do it but once every decade.

i don't know why they did it. they are desperate. they threw a hail mary. >> state senator marsh -- >> it's absurd. >> i have to say, what i appreciate is it's you there on the front lines. i know the work you have been doing since the 1950s and '60s to make sure we have fairness. i thank you so much for joining us from virginia on this topic. >> let me mention one other thing. >> sure. >> virginia wouldn't be here if they hadn't cheated. they gave citizens a sheet of paper and they had to memorize the questions and answers. the court ruled that was in violation of their rights. when virginia tried to get out from under the act, i was there in the senate. they convinced the senate that virginia should be an act. >> thank you.

that's why it matters to have folks like you on the ground with the long historical memory of this. thank you for joining us today. >> let me mention one thing. we are having a rally tuesday morning to give people the chance to protest on the state grounds. hopefully they will turn out. >> thank you so much state senator. >> thank you. >> thank you. and it's a whole new level of audacity. we will continue to talk about this issue with my panel when we come back. [ designer ] enough of just covering up my moderate to severe plaque psoriasis. i decided enough is enough. ♪ [ spa lady ] i started enbrel. it's clinically proven to provide clearer skin. [ rv guy ] enbrel may not work for everyone -- and may not clear you completely, but for many, it gets skin clearer fast, within 2 months, and keeps it clearer through 6 months. [ male announcer ] enbrel may lower your ability to fight infections. serious, sometimes fatal events, including infections, tuberculosis, lymphoma, other cancers,

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republicans in virginia's state senate on wednesday seemed poised to rig the electoral college in favor of bobby jindal or whoever the gop nominates for 2016. by friday things were falling apart. msnbc.com reported the plan could violate section 5 of the 1965 voting act requiring states including virginia declare

voting changes with the u.s. justice department. the federal government found voters of color were negatively impacted, they could block the bill. virginia's republican governor, bob mcdonnell whose spokesman said that he, mcdonnell believes virginia's existing system works fine as it is. this one has the support of rnc chairman and is under consideration in states far beyond virginia. many are not covered under the 1965 voting act. joining us is robert a former bush-cheney adviser now, a dean. arie? >> back in the voter suppression business. >> back in it in a new way. in a redrawing of the map kind of way. >> if you look at the last four

years, democrats won in 2006, 2008 and 2012. republicans won in 2010. they have tried to make this 2010 election the norm instead of the aberration. now a u.s. house lines is drawn based on a map that is already ridiculous. now they want to extend it into a 2016 presidential election. they are saying that one election, which increasingly looks like a fluke should determine politics for the next decade and beyond. that's really, truly, incredibly disturbing and anti-democratic. >> the thing about this is elections have consequences. they are saying we won one and we are going to take all the chips on the table. i feel we can't make the argument, this is mean, this is bad, this is unethical, we have to make the argument, you are not allowed to do this. is it possible to make that

argument? >> state legislatures can allocate by and large electoral votes as they see fit. public pressure is the route to take. you saw it take hold in virginia. not only the governor of virginia, but the gop gubernatorial came out against it. republicans are saying this is a sore loser strategy. come on, we can't talk about reaching out to minorities and adopt minority maps to dilute it. >> yes, this is politically smart, but a band aid. the republican party, my party, are being sore losers here. they are changing the rules in the middle of the game, it's not fair number one. number two, let's step back for a second here. let's talk about the structural reasons why the republican party is losing. let's talk about the structural reasons the republican party is not with brown people. it's asians, latinos and young

people. instead of that conversation, the republican party is trying to change the rules in the middle of the game. they recognize they can't win states like virginia and maybe not north carolina in the future. the question becomes, how do we, as a party, have this conversation like a bob mcdonnell and a joe scarborough and talk about why we are not resinating with brown people instead of changing the rules in the middle of the game. that's why i have a problem with that. >> i want to go back beyond partisanship. it's an intriguing concept in terms of how do people decide the presidential vote? as it is now, only half a dozen states really decide who are president is going to be. if you live in texas and you are a democrat, why vote. if you are a republican in california, why vote? in thinking of the larger conversation, it is interesting. is this time to start moving toward a national popular vote? >> this is my question. it's interesting you said that

point about texas. there's a new -- the dnc and now ofa, the 501 c 4 is saying maybe we can turn texas, build a castro party in texas. this isn't quite true, but part of the reason texas matters is all the electoral votes. if we go to a popular vote, if we recognize it as an 18th century version that was put into place because they weren't quite sure about regular people choosing who was going to be president. is it time to say there is a rule we can change in the middle of the game? >> yes. let's do it. i was hoping obama would win the electoral college and lose the popular vote for this very reason. it would have given both sides a reason to want to abolish the electoral college. they should campaign in new york city, in houston, not in rural ohio. obama shouldn't be in ohio ten times before an election.

he should be in the largest cities where this country is growing. i think there's an interesting point about the electoral college. >> all my viewers in south dakota are screaming right now, no, no! >> there's an argument about what the conservative response should be. should it be to try to offer solutions and get candidates who can speak to that growing demographic or to try to suppress the growing demographic? we thought concern would take it. now it's time to reach out. instead, they are back where they were during the 2010 to 2012 period. i don't think it's a long term strategy. >> we have been to that dance before. i'm for that. i believe that quite frankly republicans will do well in california. i think you would see a mitt romney who is a moderate candidate campaign in up state

new york. i think this is a good thing not only for america, but good for politics. >> why not? >> this would entail a systematic change in terms of states giving up power. you have to have a national electoral system. states are going to want to keep that power. >> particularly -- >> states like massachusetts. states like new york and on the right states like texas and so forth. this is not in their best interest. >> the pushback is, the people who have the power are the people, right? to the extent this becomes a possibility when ordinary voters say you know what? i am tired of this. this is ridiculous. people are redrawing maps. i'm just trying to go to the grocery store. i raise my hand, you raise your hand, we count them up. whoever has the most hands wins. this resinates with people as an ordinary understanding of how democracy works.

maybe there's an abolish the electoral movement. >> it's like an alien thought. >> right. >> it's how we are taught. >> i know we are taught that way. it's a confusing system. if we got rid of it, no one is pining for the days of the electoral college. >> and secretaries of states in ohio. are the republicans playing possum? plus my interview with gop star, former indiana governor and new university president, mitch daniels. more nerdland at the top of the hour. ♪ [ male announcer ] why do more emergency workers everywhere trust duracell...?? duralock power preserve. locks in power for up to 10 years in storage. now...guaranteed. duracell with duralock. trusted everywhere. i'd like to thank eating right, whole grain, multigrain cheerios!

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think not of donkeys versus elements -- elephants, but another animal showdown for hunting season. i'd like you to think about ducks and possums. now you don't have to think of a literal possum. if you have ever seen one in real life, it is something you would rather forget. but, i want you to think about the creature we describe to lay down and concede defeat. that's what we saw in the house of representatives. republicans not only approved the debt ceiling deadline without a fight but did so without making usual demands for spending cuts. before you get too comfortable with that, think again. that debt limit increase is only a temporary three-month stopgap measure to give them more time for a budget resolution in the senate and a bigger budget

battle ahead which brings me to the ducks. one lame duck to be precise. ever seen a lame duck? they can't fly far. they are lucky if they get off the ground. last week, president obama laid out his fight plan for the heights of to which he hopes to soar in his second term. his agenda may never find its wings if it is stymied in the tangle of capitol hill gridlock. a seemingly endless series of cliffs, ceilings sequesters and showdowns. the upcoming budget fight is only the first of many. remember the fiscal cliff? well, it never really went away. it was postponed for a couple months. we have the threat of automatic spending cuts looming over our heads march 1s. government shutdown on the 27th.

we'll need a new spending bill to keep it going. mark your calendars march 19th when the delayed debt ceiling crisis could come back to haunt us. the budget battle and considering the behavior of possums and ducks begs the question of when those responsible for governing will act more like the people we have elected them to be and less like political animals. with me at the table, arie, vickie, assistant dean, robert and co-founder of no label, david walker, the formal head of the office at gao. nice to have you all here. okay. so -- we have big problems. huge issues that need to be solved in our country. it looks like we are going to be lurching every six weeks to

another silly drip drap showdown for four years. is that what we are looking at here? >> what the republicans have done is always keeping this administration on the defense from a fiscal standpoint. your point was brilliant in how you worded it. every six months we have the conversation where the republican party wants to be. they want to rebrand themselves as fiscal austerity and fiscal restraint. medicare part d and iraq. that was so ten years ago. but to my earlier point, what's interesting is i'm surprised how defensive the white house hanover the last two years on this issue. to your point, what the republicans are trying to do, i suspect, is drag this along, continue the conversation and force president obama into a lame duck session where he's going to be much more weakened going into his second term. >> david you say no labels.

now your role as private citizen is to say the fact we turn to the labels of partisanship is the problem. >> it is. we need to promote progress over partisanship, results over rhetoric. we have to recognize the american people are ahead of elected officials. they know we have a problem. they can accept the truth. look, the republicans adopted the no budget no pay as a bumper sticker. it's not the proposal that no labels advocated. the reason they did it was to force the senate to have a budget. for the first time in four years, a proposal from the president and the republicans in the house and a proposal from the democrats in the senate. hopefully we can get on discussions about a grand bargain. >> pause for me in case folks haven't been following this. the thing about no pay is if the senate was not to come up with a budget, they would not be receiving paychecks. >> what happened, what was passed was there would be a

suspension of pay unless and until they came up with a budget, then receive whatever pay was suspended at that point in time. if they never came up with a budget, they would receive it at the end of this two-year congress so it wouldn't be a constitutional problem. >> if you are not doing your job, you should not get a paycheck. i wouldn't get one if i just showed up for the 10 clkt hour. this is in part a misunderstanding of how the senate and the house are meant to do the budgeting. >> the government is not a family. the government responds to need. the need now is jobs. jobs are the need and jobs are what is not being talked about. austerity is not going to create jobs. it hasn't created jobs in england. with interest rates so low, we should be borrowing more money.

>> the $1 trillion bill. i'm taking this one home with me. >> the point is now is not the time. we are in a situation where only the government can spend the money to create more jobs. if they don't do it, no one else will. we have the conversation about cutting back once we created the jobs. not until we do that. >> it's not the job of the senate. something interesting we are seeing is the new budget chair, patty murray putting a face to it. part of the problem with the democratic platform in terms of the budget, we took the backseat and waits. patty is putting a human face on it. you can't keep cutting, if you do, this is what's going to happen to the american population. >> it's less about a budget. one that is, in certain ways sort of saying -- >> defense. >> according to my understanding of the constitution, they have

the fiscal responsibility -- >> primarily in the house. >> not correct. the constitution says clearly that the only thing the congress is supposed to do every year is to pass appropriations bills. those bills should be guided by a budget. >> that's right. >> i'm 61 years old. do you know how many times congress passed a budget in my lifetime? four. it's an f minus. if they got paid for performance -- it's your job. they are not following the constitution. >> right. >> it's an interesting point. one of the thing that is folks may not realize about the budget is that more than 50% of it is automatic. >> two-thirds. >> two chi-thirds of it. the budgeting is an incremental process. the responsibility of congress is to appropriate, to tax and

spend that money. that's become -- to say the job of congress is to tax as soon as i put it in that language, it's an id logical statement rather than a descriptive statement of the job of congress. >> we are seeing the same thing. the question becomes, i disagree with you a little bit. we are at 8.9% unemployment rate. i don't know if it's the job of the government to create jobs, i believe it's the job of the government to create an environment to create jobs. what does that mean? if we don't have our fiscal house in order, how is the government, excuse me, the private sector going to look at us from a responsibility? >> everyone saying stimulate now, cut back later. we did one stimulus bill, it wasn't large enough and we didn't follow it up. >> whose fault was that?

>> we need to stimulate now. we are not doing any stimulus and talking about cutting back. it's what they say not to do. >> bobby jindal, who we give a hard time to on this show regularly, he said something similar to this on the rnc meeting thursday saying we need to stop thinking about budgets and think about real people's lives. let's listen to him. >> by obsessing with zero's on the budget spread sheet, we send a signal that the focus of our country is on the phony economy of washington, d.c. instead of the real economy in charlotte, shreveport and cheyenne. >> he's saying it's not real and you are saying it's very real. >> you have to create more opportunity. we don't want to follow europe's example by doing too much austerity too quick on the other hand we need to do something. we should be doing more investment that is properly

designed, implemented spend more on investment, less on consumpti consumption. we have to achieve a bargain to deal with costs. republicans don't want to raise more revenues, we have to. the democrats don't want to renegotiate the contract. you have to. you have to do it together and in 2013. the president needs to start. >> as soon as we come back, i'm interested in your point that you made earlier in a conversation about maybe the state of the union is the time to lay that out. we'll talk about that. also, we are going to check in with somebody else i like to give a hard time. congressman paul ryan. what he had to say on all this moments ago. ♪ you know my heart burns for you... ♪

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earlier this morning,

speaking with david gregory on nbcs "meet the press," chairman of the house budget committee, paul ray yan had this to say. >> the reason why we wanted to get the debt limit extended is to showcase the budget. here is the plan for economic growth. here is the plan for balancing the budget. here is the plan to save medicare from bankruptcy and get this debt under control. >> so he admitted it, they are playing possum. we delayed it so we could showcase our budget. he goes into talking about the so-called entitlements. one out of every $4 the government spends goes on health care. the issue of health care reform and how it's going to bring down the budget is central, right? but the idea that the only solution to so-called entitlement reform is to cut those entitlements, i think misses there are easy revenue solutions, fairly painless to

the vast majority of american taxpayers that make social security in the future. i wonder about the good will with either we are or not negotiating this grand bargain. >> we are seeing indications that folks like ryan and boehner are getting away from saying no. they are putting forward their -- robert, you are laughing at me here. >> i'm not laughing at you. >> in terms of coming to the table saying okay, we call it closing loopholes, you say it's raising revenue. i actually see a bit of a movement in terms of a discussion with the likes of boehner. ryan, i don't know about cantor. the handwriting is on the wall. the electoral handwriting is on the wall. >> they know the numbers and the numbers don't lie as to why people voted for president barack obama. as i said on the commercial, the par problem with the republicans is their brand.

they feel it's the party of the 1950s. this party doesn't speak to me. i am 47%. i'm beneath the government. my point is, i think the republicans, particularly some of the leaders in the house are becoming more compassionate about how they express their thoughts, not changing their views, but speaking in a language most say i respectfully disagree with this person, but at least her cares. >> ryan admitted they are playing possum and you are saying they have to pull themselves together in terms of rhetorical strategies, the president is not lame duck. he's riding high on being reelected and reinaugurated. does the state of the union offer him the opportunity while he may be a duck but not lame to set out the tone for what the grand bargain will look like so when the possum reawakens they have a path to follow? >> the only person elected by all the people is the president

of the united states. the president of the united states is the chief executive officer of the united states. he's the only person that can command media attention and go directly to the american people. he needs to use the state of the union as a governing speech. he is not going to achieve a lot of objectives whether it's immigration, guns and whatever else if we don't deal with finances. if we don't put our finances in order, everybody is going to suffer to different degrees over time. the truth is, every bipartisan commission says we need revenues, 2-1 spending to revenues. we have to do both. who is the leader? the president. the president has to come. >> there's a false equivalency. during the republican primary, every republican candidate raised their hand saying they wouldn't sign a budget that was 10-1 spending cuts to tax increases. if that's the policy of the republican party.

>> it's not the policy. >> hold on. >> they showmanshiped it. >> it was their policy for president. >> and he lost. >> right. let's talk reality. the reality is speaker boehner and erik cantor says we need to have a conversation about it. >> i hear you. now we are supposed to believe just on good faith. i'm an optimist so i'm almost willing to give you good faith. i want to point out that what you are saying is we should now believe this party that behaved in this was is now going to behave in a different way? what i want to know are what are the incentives and why? the reason they were behaving that way before is they believed they would be primary. >> it's public opinion. we were talking the state of the union. it's the opportunity to sell.

it's like a super bowl commercial. one of the flaws of the last administration was the president did not get out there and aggressively sell his health care policy. we see a new gumption in him. get the public opinion behind him. i know it's like a back three step process. it's how i see it. >> absolutely. let me give you an example. i went 10,000 miles on a national fiscal policy bus tour, 27 states, town hall meetings, et cetera. here are the headlines. 97% of representative voters believe putting finances in order is a top priority. 92% agreed on how. 85% said spending and revenue is weighted toward spending. specific reforms dealing with health care et cetera.

>> you have the idea. >> you have people like paul ryan that are not interested in the deficit. it's a mask for what they want to do. they want to shrink the social safety net and drown it in a bathtub. it's the true agenda. >> that's right the american people did not want to do that. >> they do not want to do that. >> i guess for me the question is, in part, whether or not this connection between public opinion and the actual behavior of legislatures how closely we can connect it. that is what we want. that is the greater story. it's not necessarily activated in that way. >> melissa, the people spoke. they spoke loudly in november. they rejected the republican parties. what the republicans have to do, if they want to win, if they want to be a majority and a relevant party, they have to compromise. the numbers don't lie.

>> robert said it, not me. if you want to be relevant my friends in the republican party, you have to compromise. it's so sad for me that i'm going to miss the state of the union. it's on marty gra day. i will not be watching. i have my priorities very clear. up next, my interview with former indiana gov, mitch daniels. for republicans is he the one that got away? with the spark miles card from capital one, thor gets great rewards for his small business! your boa! [ garth ] thor's small business earns double miles on every purchase, every day! ahh, the new fabrics. put it on my spark card. ow. [ garth ] why settle for less? the spiked heels are working. wait! [ garth ] great businesses deserve great rewards. [ male announcer ] the spark business card from capital one. choose unlimited rewards with double miles or 2% cash back on every purchase, every day! what's in your wallet? [ cheers and applause ]

[ male announcer ] zzzquil sleep-aid. [ snoring ] [ snoring ] [ male announcer ] it's not for colds. it's not for pain. it's just for sleep. [ snoring ] [ male announcer ] because sleep is a beautiful thing. [ birds chirping ] zzzquil -- the non-habit forming sleep-aid from the makers of nyquil. have you tried this yet? save on zzzquil and other innovative products with the january 27th p&g brandsaver. last thursday the republican governor of louisiana, bobby jindal criticized his party for the narrow focus on budget battles. that governor is urging the gop to stop being stupid and broaden their appeal. the very same night i was in indiana to deliver a speech at purdue. i sat down with the director of

management under president bush george w. bush. i wanted to get his reactions. many republicans hoped daniels, a fiscal conservative would run for president in 2012. he turned that job down and made a seriously nerdy move. despite he is not an academic, ened up not president of the united states but president of purdue university. i talked with him. >> budgets are the wrong place to be focused but you have made a career, in part on what you have seen as being critically important, which is the budgeting process. talk to me about the importance of budgets. >> i'm a noncombatant. >> no. i'm interested in the importance of budgets. >> i don't have a party or partisan point of view. i'll say that. i would agree that it's a mistake to fix sate on budgets

as though they were the end themselves. they are an expression of what's important to us. we devote the most money to the things we believe is most important. it's a fundmental decision. we have to be thinking in terms of priorities and they translate into the dollars and cents. >> you were wildly popular as governor. >> not always. >> not universally but really quite popular in terms of winning re-election at the time when president obama carried the state and you had a robust re-election, included 20% of the african-american vote. >> maybe more. >> it's extraordinary for a republican candidate at the time. how are you going to balance that fiscal common sense that you are well loved for and yet the critiques around social issues that are extremely important at a place like a university? >> it's never for the money.

i hope we always explain to people in this state why we believed as we did, that we should be careful about dollars and cents, for instance. because we were trying to build a climate of opportunity and a welcoming climate, new investment and growth that would be good for everybody. similarly here at this university, i consider it one of my principle assignments to make certain a young person from anywhere, from any income level who can meet purdue's high standards can come here and can leave financially solvent either without debt or debts they can manage. >> one of my favorite things you did was the incentive around child support and the idea you couldn't get a fishing or hunting license or -- >> casino. >> casino's can't pay out if you have back child support. it seems like the common sense

policies that are about holding people accountable in ways that make sense and that would clearly create a lot of bipartisan agreement. >> they are good example ofs things that attract support from across the spectrum. you know, to raise an even larger question that an implication of your question, i think we have got a need in this country to restore faith in government. now i say that as someone who thinks government gets too big for its britches and tries to do things it shouldn't or can't do. we don't want skepticism of big government to be contempt of all government. it's corrosive to our democracy. in recent year, we have come too close to that. >> as a nerd, it makes sense to me not to run as president but

be president of a university. i would take that choice every time. >> you are a smart lady. i knew you were smart. >> for other folks, you choose not to run for president of the united states in 2012, at a time when i think a lot of people were hungry for you to do so, particularly in the republican party, you chose to come and run a university in indiana. why that choice? >> they were separated by a year. they were very different in the first case, i had multiple reasons, but a stopper was my family. it's five women and me. they are a very powerful caucus. >> sure. >> i think i said at the time, family constitution, the women's caucus has a veto and there's no override provision. on top of that, i had the misgivings that i think any

sensible person would. it's a vicious, nasty game the way it's played. people for their own reasons will say things that are untrue and unfair. this purdue opportunity, i say, you see i was right about not running for president. i held out and golt a better job. >> right. >> vicious nasty game that he avoided. he has no idea about university politics. when we come back, the fight is on. in city after city, dozens of schools scheduled to be closed. they are in low income neighborhoods of color. the plans to put it to stop, next. ♪

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country. the catch? the vast majority of them are filled with children who are predominantly minority kids and from low income families. so, this coming tuesday, students, parents and advocate si people from 18 cities are taking their case to the u.s. department of education in washington, d.c. their argument? those who decide which schools to close are unfairly targeting schools and that constitutes civil rights violations. we have the director for the alliance of quality education and the leader from the new york city coalition for justice and sarah, writeer. author of "divided we fail." it ended the era of school desegregation. nice to see you here. you are on your way to d.c.,

tell me why. what is at stake for you in this? >> let me correct, there's 26 schools in new york city up for closure. this is part of a national epidemic that we are seeing. as you said in communities of color around the country. 18 cities, we came together through a conversation through phone calls. what we found out is in each of our individual cities, we have experienced the devastation of school closures. 140 here. this is our moment in our movement. we are bringing young people to d.c. on tuesday to demand a couple things. there's a national moratorium for all school closures. that we meet with the president. we believe his goal of 2025 will not be met with using these kind of policies in our communities. any other pieces, the solution piece. we have the solution for sustainable success model. one that goes against the grain

of everything happening in reform. >> let me start with education reform. i'm going to ask you this and sarah come to you on this. what you will hear from education reformers and the city leaders is we are closing these schools to help these kids. they are underperforming schools, we can look at the test scores, see they are not serving the kids and our response is an accountability response to close the schools. why miss parent, miss teacher, miss student would you want us to keep open an under performing school. >> it's what the mayor said to me a couple of times. what we say to that is clearly, it hasn't been an academic failure. in new york city, we have closed 140 schools. 26 are on the list now to close again. we have -- we understand one out of four children are graduating based on the department of education numbers. 13% of black and latino children

are graduating not college ready. those numbers go across the country. it is a moment in time we are going to take advantage of to echo. we need people. we need to push back against the reformers that say closures are successful and we need to say why when we push back we are labeled supporting failure, others -- >> standing up for white kids. it feels to me like there's at least two things going on here. one, it's a narrow definition of what constitutes success in a school and the other is what schools do in a community. the idea of the value of a long term institution that parents know and that kids go to and your sister and brother went to. somehow we are not imagining those as part of what schools are and what they do. >> i think it's an excellent point. i think it's why you are seeing a huge frustration and anger in these communities.

school is not just about getting high scores on tests. that's the main justification that's been used. they are not performing mainly on standardized tests. those things are very, very important. i wouldn't argue that closing schools down is always the wrong thing to do but i think that it's been a very across the board we use this criteria and we close schools down if they don't meet this benchmark. without looking at the other things schools provide, which is community. they are places that people look to and say this is my identity. especially with high schools which have been a big focus in new york city particularly, closing down high schools. for most people, their high school is part of who they are and who the community is. so, i think, you know, people living in these communities are saying the schools can offer more than just good test scores for kids. we should figure out how to make it happen.

>> this is an interesting inversion of what we typically thought of education as the most localized policy. it was conservatives saying look, you have to let local communities make decisions about curriculum to property taxes and the whole thing. now we have moved to the centralizing that allows this kind of decision making and silences the voices of community members. >> you have to locate what is happening in the schools. we have seen so many cuts to education particularly to teachers as part of layoffs. when we say we have to cut back, we are cutting back on the important things in society. if we are not investing in education, you are not going to have society. if we close a school, do you have resources for a better school or is it a vicious cycle and it's just cuts, cuts, cuts. >> we don't need resources for schools. you don't need well paid teacher who is have a retirement account

and health insurance. you need young teacher who is are enthusiastic and care. the narrative is that we don't -- resources have been a failure. instead, what we need is some kind of innovation in curriculum. particularly, getting rid of teachers. >> one of the innovations is online. as an educator, i think there are some things you can do online. there are some. but i start to get really nervous when you start going into middle school, elementary school and get more nervous when you want to do all classes there. i think this is happening with the public education. not only are we closing schools, but i see an attack on public education. a death by 1,000 cuts. let's focus on charter schools. let's go to online education and also the issue with going online is that you need internet. you need a fast computer to go online. you need a parent or a

supervisor who is there to help you be online. so, what happen ifs you don't have that. >> interesting the idea of death by 1,000. we were talking roe v. wade and how you can leave something legal at the top. we are going to stay on this topic. up next, we are going to talk about the history of school desegregation. [ male announcer ] where do you turn for legal matters? maybe you want to incorporate a business. or protect your family with a will or living trust. and you'd like the help of an attorney. at legalzoom a legal plan attorney is available in most states with every personalized document to answer questions. get started at legalzoom.com today. and now you're protected.

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i know your work around louisville and you went to school there. talk to me about what happened around the segregation and integration story. >> i want to be clear that i think racial integration is an important goal given howdy vided our country is politically and economically. poor are getting poorer, rich are getting richer. it's important to figure out ways to make diversity happen. it's the function of public schools, the bring people together and create a nation. but, the way it was carried out in the '70s and '80s, to make desegregation work you had districts concerned about middle class flight. to make them happy so they wouldn't leave the systems were built around, you know, making it easier so that white kids didn't necessarily have to go downtown. black schools were closed. black teachers were fired.

you know, you have advanced programs, gifted and talented programs set up that became majority white. >> the schools within the schools with a magnet program operating so it is nominally integrated but the experience on a day-to-day basis is still one of educational segregation in the classroom. >> absolutely. it under cuts support. they are the communities that it was supposed to help create a more equitable system and people were saying this is not fair, this is not equal. so that really, i think, you know, people shot themselves in the foot when trying to promote desegregation and going about it this way. >> it strikes me as there's a mirror here to the thing we are dealing with, again. people didn't love segregation. they weren't down with it otherwise they wouldn't have put their kids in harms way to desegregate. it's not like there's a golden

age of segregation. somehow it's as though we pursue one goal, we miss the rest of it. as you hopefully get an audience with the president or as you are in d.c. with parents from 18 cities, what is the big story? what are the solutions you have here? >> there are quite a few. we are clear on the shoulders of which we stand. the young people there and the parents and community members there from all over the country. we get that. on the anniversary of roe v. wade. black history month approaching. this is a moe men tus time for us to put forth the collusions that we haven't seen here in new york city or across the country. one that supports collaboration, not the competition. the best choice for any parent or student is a quality school in their neighborhood, which we have gone away from. it is about supporting and holding up teachers, providing professional development when they need support, not going

under the bus every chance you get. it's putti inting forth things work. for sustainable change, the community must be engaged. they will fight tooth and nail to ensure it stays there. >> it's not about competition. we use that competition model, we forget we don't want some kids to have and others not or some schools to go out of business. it's a collaboration model. thank you for the seriousness of that insight. first, it is time for a preview of weekends with alex witt but that's t.j. holmes. good morning. >> the discussion you are having this morning and another topic you have taken up plenty of times, the income inequality, the president talked about that. we will hit on that and see if he can do something about poverty in his second term. this is an idea you can get on board with, melissa, no budget,

no pay. yes, that is in front of the senate. it's a proposal. with holding pay for members of congress until they pass a budget. we'll talk about where they think it will go. paul ryan today saying republicans need to avoid being stamped as quote, villains. what exactly does that mean for the party. and in office politics, "hardball's" hardball chris matthews giving a preview of his new book on two political adversaries that shared a famous friend. i will see you back here in a few minutes. >> i realized you could totally play president obama in the made for tv lifetime movie. >> come on. i think all light-skinned brothers look alike. >> you totally could. >> i swear, melissa. >> so much fun when you hear. the important stories of the week like hillary clinton's glass and the mystery behind beyonce's performance. hey, our salads.

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even with four hours each weekend we don't manage to cover all of the big stories. here we utterly failed to address lance armstrong's dope, manty te'o's ungirlfriend, beyonce's prerecording and hillary clinton's glasses. after all, these are the stories that dominated airways, twitter feeds, and water cooler chats. earlier this week, my colleague reverend sharpton made an empassioned plea to avoid the distraction and made the focus at hand. i agree. we are in serious times and we have a responsibility to address them seriously, but i also want to make a case for having a little fun. when i was in grad school, i detested problem sets. i'd sit for hours working through one problem after another. often i ran out of energy and attention. then i learned a group of guys in my program worked together.

their study sessions were including humor and basketball and sometimes with a wad of paper and a trash can. in the end, they accomplished more and dreaded the work less. they developed a strategy that tapped in to collaboration and renewal and playfulness as important elements of optimal problem solving. these are the tools we need in our politics, not distraction, but fun. the problems we face are serious, but we must be serious to tackle them but also we will need to be creative and collaborative. our country is embroiled in international conflict. reproduction rights under assault. our kids face unequal education circumstances and the future of the fragile planet is uncertain n. this context it is easy to embrace a workhorse mentality of grim determination but i worry our effectiveness wanes as our

jaws tighten and our fists clinch n. these bitter circumstances we need an environment of possible that builds camaraderie and awards outrageous ideas and encourages resilience. don't be distracted by meaningless fluff that passes as news. be distracted by music, nature, by kids that want to play catch and your couch that beckens for a nap. in nerdland we have dance parties to our favorite music and a few shared videos of bo, the white house dog. we have a long road to travel and let's take breaks, pace ourselves and cultivate joy along the way. movements are not sustainable if those who do the work are exhausted. laugh at ourselves and at the comic madness of our circumstances, recognizing that humor does not diminish the gravity of our moment, it simply lightens the load as we bear it.

that's our show for today. thank you to my guest and to you at home for watching. i will see you next saturday. coming up, weekends with alex witt with the guy that looks like the president, t.j. holmes. o this reduced sodium soup says it may help lower cholesterol, how does it work? you just have to eat it as part of your heart healthy diet. step 1. eat the soup. all those veggies and beans, that's what may help lower your cholesterol and -- well that's easy [ male announcer ] progresso. you gotta taste this soup. how did i know? well, i didn't really. see, i figured low testosterone would decrease my sex drive... but when i started losing energy and became moody... that's when i had an honest conversation with my doctor. we discussed all the symptoms... then he gave me some blood tests. showed it was low t. that's it. it was a number -- not just me. [ male announcer ] today, men with low t have androgel 1.62% (testosterone gel). the #1 prescribed topical testosterone replacement therapy, increases testosterone when used daily.

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